The tree line distant and still

Closer than what I remember as the edge
of the earth with a sail cast out on string,
wavering in the wind, barely blowing
my father teaches me to fly.
I’m beneath a gnarled contortionist, shade
sporadic, sunburnt holes in leaf cover,
chain-link backstop all that’s left of childhood
on this old diamond where I grew wanting
to learn to fly with the alloyed birds
leaving Love Field. To leave I had to let
go and watch my sail sail over the forest
trim into memory, cry my father
next to me. The trees, the kite, the empty
spool, strung out of my hands. Sun has melted
all the way through. I am becoming less
in this crabgrass field of trinkets.
My kite’s tail shivers up the canopy.

Nicolas Visconti studies creative writing and has work forthcoming in Prelude Magazine.

Emanuela Franco is a Brazilian journalist with more than ten years of experience in Brazil and Europe. The photojournalism project “Let’s Play” (“Vamos Brincar”) aims to record images of children playing in the streets of Brazil. “Let’s Play” reviews the games currently forgotten by most children who live in large cities. Playing “paste-stick” (pega-pega), “hide-hide” (esconde-esconde), “seven sins” (sete pecados), among other games, are part of the tradition of some communities and societies of inland places. Rescuing the games of the past is fundamental in that society where new technologies invade everything. One of the focuses of the project is the social isolation of children living in large skyscrapers, locked up as a result of the expansion of urban violence.